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Star 48B
The Star 48 is the largest of a family of solid rocket motors used by many space propulsion and launch vehicle stages. It is used almost exclusively as an upper stage. It was developed primarily by Thiokol Propulsion and is now, after several mergers, manufactured by Northrop Grumman’s Space Systems division. A Star 48B stage is also one of the few man-made items sent on escape trajectories out of the Solar System, although it is derelict since its use. The Star 48B variant was the PAM-D upper stage used on the now retired Delta II rocket. The Star 48 has been used as an upper stage in three- and four-stage launch systems. Overview The "48" designation refers to the approximate diameter of the fuel casing in inches (122 cm); Thiokol had also manufactured other motors such as the Star 37 and Star 30. Internally, Thiokol's designation was TE-M-711 for early versions and TE-M-799 for later ones. Subtypes are given one or more letter suffixes af ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thiokol
Thiokol (variously Thiokol Chemical Corporation(/Company), Morton Thiokol Inc., Cordant Technologies Inc., Thiokol Propulsion, AIC Group, ATK Thiokol, ATK Launch Systems Group; finally Orbital ATK before becoming part of Northrop Grumman) was an American corporation concerned initially with rubber and related chemicals, and later with rocket and missile propulsion systems. Its name is a portmanteau of the Greek words for sulfur (θεῖον ''"theion"'') and glue (κόλλα ''"kolla"''), an allusion to the company's initial product, Thiokol polymer. The Thiokol Chemical Company was founded in 1929. Its initial business was a range of synthetic rubber and polymer sealants. Thiokol was a major supplier of liquid polymer sealants during World War II. When scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory discovered that Thiokol's polymers made ideal binders for solid rocket fuels, Thiokol moved into the new field, opening laboratories at Elkton, Maryland, and later production facilitie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spin-stabilized Satellite
Spacecraft attitude control is the process of controlling the orientation of a spacecraft (vehicle/satellite) with respect to an inertial frame of reference or another entity such as the celestial sphere, certain fields, and nearby objects, etc. Controlling vehicle attitude requires sensors to measure vehicle orientation, actuators to apply the torques needed to orient the vehicle to a desired attitude, and algorithms to command the actuators based on (1) sensor measurements of the current attitude and (2) specification of a desired attitude. The integrated field that studies the combination of sensors, actuators and algorithms is called guidance, navigation and control (GNC). Overview A spacecraft's attitude must typically be stabilized and controlled for a variety of reasons. It is often needed so that the spacecraft high-gain antenna may be accurately pointed to Earth for communications, so that onboard experiments may accomplish precise pointing for accurate collection ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Astronomical Unit
The astronomical unit (symbol: au, or or AU) is a unit of length, roughly the distance from Earth to the Sun and approximately equal to or 8.3 light-minutes. The actual distance from Earth to the Sun varies by about 3% as Earth orbits the Sun, from a maximum (aphelion) to a minimum (perihelion) and back again once each year. The astronomical unit was originally conceived as the average of Earth's aphelion and perihelion; however, since 2012 it has been defined as exactly (see below for several conversions). The astronomical unit is used primarily for measuring distances within the Solar System or around other stars. It is also a fundamental component in the definition of another unit of astronomical length, the parsec. History of symbol usage A variety of unit symbols and abbreviations have been in use for the astronomical unit. In a 1976 resolution, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) had used the symbol ''A'' to denote a length equal to the astronomical ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
McDonnell Douglas
McDonnell Douglas was a major American aerospace manufacturing corporation and defense contractor, formed by the merger of McDonnell Aircraft and the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1967. Between then and its own merger with Boeing in 1997, it produced well-known commercial and military aircraft, such as the DC-10 airliner, the F-15 Eagle air superiority fighter, the MD-80 airliner, and the F/A-18 Hornet multirole fighter. The corporation's headquarters were at St. Louis Lambert International Airport, near St. Louis, Missouri; its subsidiary, McDonnell Douglas Technical Services Company (MDTSC), was based elsewhere in St. Louis County, Missouri. At its peak in mid-1990, McDonnell Douglas employed 132,500 people. By the end of 1992, employment had dropped to approximately 87,400. History Background The company was formed from the firms of James Smith McDonnell and Donald Wills Douglas in 1967. Both men were of Scottish ancestry, were graduates of the Massachusetts Institute of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spin-stabilisation
Spin stabilization is the method of stabilizing a satellite or launch vehicle by means of spin, i.e. rotation along the longitudinal axis. The concept originates from ballistics, where the spin is commonly obtain by means of rifling. For most satellite applications this approach has been superseded by three-axis stabilization. Despinning can be achieved by various techniques, including yo-yo de-spin. Use On rockets with a solid motor upper stage, spin stabilization is used to keep the motor from drifting off course as they don't have their own thrusters. Usually small rockets are used to spin up the spacecraft and rocket then fire the rocket and send the craft off. Some rockets, like the Jupiter-C, Delta II, Minotaur V and the satellite Aryabhata are spin-stabilised. The Pioneer 4 spacecraft, the second object sent on a lunar flyby in 1959, maintained its attitude using spin-stabilization. The Schiaparelli EDM lander was spun up to 2.5 RPM before being ejected from the ExoMar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pluto
Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun. It is the largest known trans-Neptunian object by volume, by a small margin, but is slightly less massive than Eris (dwarf planet), Eris. Like other Kuiper belt objects, Pluto is made primarily of ice and rock and is much smaller than the inner planets. Compared to Moon, Earth's moon, Pluto has only one sixth its mass and one third its volume. Pluto has a moderately orbital eccentricity, eccentric and inclined orbit, ranging from from the Sun. Light from the Sun takes 5.5 hours to reach Pluto at its average distance (). Pluto's eccentric orbit periodically brings it closer to the Sun than Neptune, but a stable orbital resonance prevents them from colliding. Pluto has moons of Pluto, five known moons: Charon (moon), Charon, the larg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth the mass of the Sun. Jupiter is the List of brightest natural objects in the sky, third brightest natural object in the Earth's night sky after the Moon and Venus, and it has been observed since Pre-history, prehistoric times. It was named after the Jupiter (mythology), Roman god Jupiter, the king of the gods. Jupiter is primarily composed of hydrogen, but helium constitutes one-quarter of its mass and one-tenth of its volume. It probably has a rocky core of heavier elements, but, like the other giant planets in the Solar System, it lacks a well-defined solid surface. The ongoing contraction of Jupiter's interior generates more heat than it receives from the Sun. Because of its rapid rotation, the planet' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Horizons
''New Horizons'' is an Interplanetary spaceflight, interplanetary space probe that was launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), with a team led by Alan Stern, the spacecraft was launched in 2006 with the primary mission to perform a Planetary flyby, flyby study of the Pluto system in 2015, and a secondary mission to fly by and study one or more other Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) in the decade to follow, which became a mission to 486958 Arrokoth. It is the List of artificial objects leaving the Solar System, fifth space probe to achieve the escape velocity needed to leave the Solar System. On January 19, 2006, ''New Horizons'' was launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station by an Atlas V rocket directly into an Earth-and-solar Escape velocity, escape trajectory with a speed of about . It was the fastest (average speed with respect to Earth) man ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Delta IV Heavy
The Delta IV Heavy (Delta 9250H) is an expendable heavy-lift launch vehicle, the largest type of the Delta IV family. It is the world's third highest-capacity launch vehicle in operation, behind NASA's Space Launch System and SpaceX's Falcon Heavy and closely followed by CASC's Long March 5. It is manufactured by United Launch Alliance (ULA) and was first launched in 2004. ULA will retire the Delta IV Heavy in 2024. , two flights remain. The Delta IV Heavy consists of a central Common Booster Core (CBC), with two additional CBCs as liquid rocket boosters instead of the GEM-60 solid rocket motors used by the Delta IV Medium+ versions. At lift off, all three cores operate at full thrust, and 44 seconds later the center core throttles down to 55% to conserve fuel until booster separation. The boosters burn out at 242 seconds after launch and are separated as the core booster throttles back up to full thrust. The core burns out 86 seconds later, and the second stage completes the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minotaur IV
Minotaur IV, also known as Peacekeeper SLV and OSP-2 PK is an active expendable launch system derived from the LGM-118 Peacekeeper ICBM. It is operated by Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems, and made its maiden flight on 22 April 2010, carrying the HTV-2a Hypersonic Test Vehicle. The first orbital launch occurred on 26 September 2010 with the SBSS satellite for the United States Air Force. The Minotaur IV vehicle consists of four stages Ye Tianshi (1667–1747) was a Chinese medical scholar who was the major proponent of the "school of warm diseases". His major work, ''Wen-re Lun'' (Discussion of Warm Diseases) published in 1746, divided the manifestations of diseases into four s ... and is capable of placing of payload into a Low Earth orbit (LEO). It uses the first three stages of the Peacekeeper missile, combined with a new upper stage. On the baseline version, the fourth stage is an Orion (rocket stage), Orion 38. However a higher performance variant, designated Minotaur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thrust Vectoring
Thrust vectoring, also known as thrust vector control (TVC), is the ability of an aircraft, rocket, or other vehicle to manipulate the direction of the thrust from its engine(s) or motor(s) to control the attitude or angular velocity of the vehicle. In rocketry and ballistic missiles that fly outside the atmosphere, aerodynamic control surfaces are ineffective, so thrust vectoring is the primary means of attitude control. Exhaust vanes and gimbaled engines were used in the 1930s by Robert Goddard. For aircraft, the method was originally envisaged to provide upward vertical thrust as a means to give aircraft vertical (VTOL) or short (STOL) takeoff and landing ability. Subsequently, it was realized that using vectored thrust in combat situations enabled aircraft to perform various maneuvers not available to conventional-engined planes. To perform turns, aircraft that use no thrust vectoring must rely on aerodynamic control surfaces only, such as ailerons or elevator; aircraft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johnson Space Center
The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) is NASA's center for human spaceflight (originally named the Manned Spacecraft Center), where human spaceflight training, research, and flight control are conducted. It was renamed in honor of the late US president and Texas native, Lyndon B. Johnson, by an act of the United States Senate on February 19, 1973. It consists of a complex of 100 buildings constructed on in the Clear Lake Area of Houston, which acquired the official nickname "Space City" in 1967. The center is home to NASA's astronaut corps, and is responsible for training astronauts from both the US and its international partners. It houses the Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center, which has provided the flight control function for every NASA human spaceflight since Gemini 4 (including Apollo, Skylab, Apollo–Soyuz, and Space Shuttle). It is popularly known by its radio call signs "Mission Control" and "Houston". The original Manned Spacecraft Center grew out ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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